Somebody should send help

Now Playing

Atari 2600 – Final Approach

Putting up an energy shield for protection against planes…might just work.

A simple simulation game by short-lived developers Apollo.
Will something like that work on the Atari 2600?
Sure.But is it fun?

“You are an air traffic controller at an international airport. You must guide planes into landing safely.”
You watch the ‘action‘ through a window in your control center.
There’s a table with cute, little microphone in front of you and a ‘beautiful‘ view of the landing field.
Once the game starts a bunch of planes will fly in from every direction.
They don’t seem to have any logical pattern which is pretty realistic since most pilots are heavy drinkers.
Move the cursor over a plane, change their direction and guide them to the landing strip.
Once they are near the strip you can press the middle button in the control center and the screen switches to the Ground Control Approach.
Here you try to make a perfect landing for whopping 25 points.
And that is it.

Apollo is known for producing some ugly games and this one is no exception.
It’s not as bad as Skeet Shoot but the boring looking landing field and the barebone planes aren’t eye candy either.
The sound is also annoying with a constant buzzing that made me really dizzy after a while.

Final Approach is not a challenge.
At all.
Make sure the planes don’t crash into each other (easy because they are really slow) and follow the white line while landing.
It worked every time.
Yes, you lose some points when planes leave the screen, but what does it matter?
You’ll switch the game off long before you get a ‘game over‘.
It’s a nice idea but ultimately sleep inducing.g.g.g..g……zzzzzzzzzzzzz